Abstract:

As businesses, community leaders, and educational administrators rushed during the imposed health guidelines to shut down non-essential entities, many were not prepared for the transition. In fact, many were struggling to create new policies, procedures, and even programs for their own form of continuity of business as usual. While many businesses are aware of potential business shutdowns or shortages, they may have a formal or information plan for business continuity. However, many educational institutions were not as careful as they should have been for such a traumatic crisis felt across the world. Thus, it should be noted that many educational institutions have had contingency plans in force when there are weather conditions such as tropic storms, earthquakes, and other natural disasters – but the impact of this health crisis presented a new set of events, players, and factors. As a result, there were many lessons learned and best practices gained during this time. Consequently, this period during and after the Pandemic caused many in the educational community to rethink how they operated and what changes needed to be put into place to become better prepared. Therefore, the key takeaway from this historical event was put into the hands of educators and administrators to start planning immediately with all the knowledge gained during this period to not only build upon their current “community of practice”, but to also add to their own institutional knowledge management foundations, as well as help train all educational personnel in different methodologies and strategies for the future. Finally, this paper will address the lessons learned, best practices developed, and creating strategies used to help with educational continuity plans and program sustainability.

Keywords:

Best practices, educational continuity planning, educational strategies.